TEDWomen is a conference full of inspiring ideas, stories, visons — but what do we do with that energy and inspiration? A first step: Write a letter. If you’re watching the TEDWomen feed, watching live at a TEDx, following the news on Twitter and the TED Blog, and you feel a moment of deep inspiration to action — write 50 words or so to the speaker who made you fee that way. Let them know what their story means to you.

And if you’re inspired to, make a pledge. Are you inspired to join their cause? Let them know. Are you inspired by the speaker to do something new in your own life, your own community? Tell the speaker about your commitment.

Sharing an idea isn’t like snapping your fingers — things don’t just instantly change. But as more people hear an idea over time, it can trickle into people’s thinking — and shifts, both subtle and extreme, can happen as a result. In a TEDWomen session called “The 19th Minute,” host Courtney E. Martin invited several […]

Cross-posted from TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell’s blog on the Huffington Post. When Hanna Rosin, the first speaker at the very first TEDWomen conference in 2010, delivered her talk she had titled “The End of Men,” she had only just begun the research for what became her bestselling 2012 book by the same name. And as the […]